The present invention relates to education and more particularly to educational devices for teaching or self-teaching the manual alphabet of the deaf to those who are blind, deaf, blind-deaf and to those with normal sight and hearing, as well as for teaching and communicating feelings, concepts and ideas to and among such persons.
A search of the art relating to such educational devices failed to uncover any prior art reference which discloses the educational device of the present invention. A number of references were uncovered which disclose a variety of simple, as well as complex, teaching and communicating aids for the blind and/or deaf. The following is a listing of patents and publications uncovered during the aforementioned search:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Patentee Issue Year ______________________________________ 1,962,687 Hodge 1934 2,972,140 Hirsch 1961 3,831,296 Hagle 1974 4,074,444 Laenger, Sr. et al 1978 4,215,490 Fewell 1980 ______________________________________ British Pat. No. 770,243 Popular Machanics, June 1979, page 90.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,962,687 to Hodge discloses a communication chart for use by a person to instruct others in the manual alphabet of the deaf. The chart comprises a sheet of flexible material upon which is displayed all the letters of the English alphabet. Flexible tabs are superposed over each letter on the chart and are adapted to be lifted up to expose the underlying letter. The underside of each flexible tab is provided with an illustration of the manual alphabet sign corresponding to the respective underlying English letter.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,074,444 to Laenger, Sr. et al discloses a method and apparatus for communicating with the blind-deaf by means of a movable anthropomorphic, electromechanical hand which is electronically programmed to form letters of the one-hand manual alphabet. The electromechanical hand is controlled by an electronic buffer which converts intelligence signals from an electric typewriter or teletype machine to a code which causes mechanical motion of the hand to a programmed position corresponding to a character of the one-hand manual alphabet.
At page 90 of the aforementioned Popular Mechanics publication of June 1979, there is disclosed a variation of a device commonly known in the art as a "talking glove." Upon the palm-side of the glove, the letters of the English alphabet are displayed and, located adjacent each alphabet letter, is the Braille representation of that letter. The device is said to be useful to the "average" person, presumably, a hearing and sighted person, as a substitute for sign language communication.
One of the greatest barriers to communication between people is the inherent communication barrier between the blind and the deaf, and especially between the deaf and the blind-deaf. As the aforementioned references demonstrate, prior developments in the educational field have been virtually unresponsive to the need for teaching techniques of communication between deaf or hearing impaired individuals and blind or sight impaired individuals. Heretofore, the prior art has focused upon and sought to improve communication techniques, including face-to-face conversational communication, either between deaf persons or between normally sighted and hearing persons and the blind and/or deaf. Thus, the educational and communication devices of the prior art are neither suitable nor readily adapted for two-way, non-oral communications between the blind and the deaf, especially between the deaf and the blind-deaf.
In addition, the prior art education devices for teaching the manual alphabet, even to the deaf and to sighted and hearing persons, are in the form of two-dimensional illustrations on charts and posters, such as that shown in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 1,962,687 to Hodge. For many individuals, including sighted and hearing persons, it is difficult to position the hand and physically duplicate the characters of the manual alphabet merely by viewing two-dimensional illustrations. Such difficulties tend to discourage sighted persons from self-educating themselves in the manual alphabet.